Hoisting ropes typically include one or several load bearing members that are elongated in the longitudinal direction of the rope, each load bearing member forming a structure that continues unbroken throughout the length of the rope. Load bearing members are the members of the rope which are able to bear together the load exerted on the rope in its longitudinal direction. The load, such as a weight suspended by the rope, causes tension on the load bearing member in the longitudinal direction of the rope, which tension can be transmitted by the load bearing member in question all the way from one end of the rope to the other end of the rope. Ropes may further comprise non-bearing components, such as an elastic coating, which cannot transmit tension in the above described way.
In prior art, such hoisting ropes exist where the load bearing members are embedded in non-conducting coating, such as polymer coating, forming the surface of the hoisting rope and extending between adjacent load bearing members thereby isolating them from each other both mechanically and electrically. For facilitating awareness of condition of the condition of ropes, and thereby for improving safety of the hoisting apparatus, monitoring of the condition of the load bearing members has been proposed. The condition monitoring has been proposed in prior art to be arranged by monitoring electrical parameters of the load bearing members. Such parameters may include resistance for instance. For this purpose, the load bearing members need to be connected electrically to a source of electricity. A drawback has been that there has not been an effective and simple way for providing the electrical connection.
Furthermore, such solutions exist where said load bearing members are in the form of elongated composite members made of composite material comprising reinforcing fibers in polymer matrix. In this type of solutions, establishing the electrical connection has been particularly challenging owing to the fragility of the composite material of the load bearing members.